Stuck
by TheFraggable74
Summary: Can too much of a good thing be dangerous? What, exactly, is the line between love and insanity?


**Stuck**

_by TheFraggable74_

So, now that I'm here, what do you want to know about me? My interests? My family life? How about my friends? I could really tell you anything.

Oh, so you want to know about _that_, huh? I guess I should've seen it coming. That _is _what I'm in here for, anyways. But really, it's not as big a deal as everyone says it is. I mean, I've had difficulty keeping this entire thing under wraps, but...how do I even go about this without sounding insane?

Let's just get this out of the way: I'm going crazy because of him. All of the things he does, they're just so fantastic, but with each passing day I go crazier and crazier. It's just so amazing how someone can do the things he does and never mess up one time. I tell you, this boy's a real genius. He knows everything about everything, and to top it off he's the nicest kid you could ever meet. And he thinks nothing of it. He just does it to make his summer worthwhile. No one pays him to do this stuff, but he'll never take that smile off of his face. Even when the project that took him the entire day to make just flat-out disappears, he just shrugs it off and gets on with his life!

Oh, what has he done, you say? Well, to knock off a few... He's built a rollercoaster through town, created a nonsensical hit pop song, reformed an old band that had brought his parents together, traveled around the entire world in a day, and-

No, I'm not making any of this up. I get that you think because I'm a kid and my hormones are getting all wacky that I have an overactive imagination...oh yeah, that, but that's not really the same. Anyways, I've been with him every day during the summer. I could call up any of my friends right now and they could tell you everything I just said!

Fine, then don't believe me. But I'm telling you the truth. Almost everyone has seen these things happen.

What does all this have to do with anything? Look, this is something I'm not too comfortable going into, but since we're here to talk about just that, fine.

I'm in love with the kid. I've loved him since probably the day I-Actually, that's not entirely true. We didn't quite get along when we first met. Or should I say, I didn't quite get along with him. I was a very introverted preschooler. I would just spend my time drawing random pictures on this notepad my mom got me. He came up to me and asked with this cocky tone "Whatcha drawin'?" I kept pushing him away, but he would just keep coming back. Then, I just wailed at him. I don't even know why...I guess I just wanted my space.

After that, though, I got a pretty heavy scolding from my mom. She told me that I'd have to be nicer to people or she'd send me away to a shrink...well, looks like that turned out well. Anyways, I got to know the kid. It was pretty funny how fast he forgave me...we just became best friends after that incident. I mean, he really liked hanging out with me, anyways. But then I got to know him. He was a really sweet kid...never did I see one frown come from his face. It was simply amazing. And the more I got to know him, the more I fell in love with him. Just his demeanor and the things he did every day, it was crazy.

Heck, I couldn't even understand his relationship with his stepbrother. He never talked, but they just...they just /got/ each other. It's like that "twin telepathy" thing you'd always hear about, except with stepbrothers. I can never tell what that guy's thinking, but he just knows it all and somehow knows just how to react. It's simply amazing. And the way these two work together in everything they do...I don't know any word to describe it other than extraordinary.

So, after about seven years, I was head-over-heels obsessed over him. I'd show up at his house every day at the exact same time every day, always going up to him in this "Whatcha doin'?" catchphrase-esque thing that just SCREAMED "I'm madly in love with you!" But he never paid too much attention to that. He usually just let me help him or included me in his fantastical daily project.

And I've always secretly hoped that he loved me back. I mean, it'd just crush me if he didn't feel the same way. Imagine that sort of unrequited love. Probably the most heart-wrenching feeling ever if you ask me. But really, he never showed much signs of anything. He's smarter than probably any rocket scientist I've ever heard of, but his head is as dense as stone. Most oblivious kid you'll ever meet, not even joking.

And here comes the reason why I'm here. I've always had this section of my thought process run rampant throughout my mind...I've had a cute little nickname for it for years, but people are now using this fancy word to describe it. I don't like that word, skittlesafraidia or whatever they call it. I like my word for it better.

Anyways, I've always had that thought process go on, and it'd strike whenever I'm with him. He'd just randomly fall in love with me and he'd take us to some magical, faraway place. You know, like where the sun is all shiny and the air smells like warm root beer. And the towels are oh-so fluffy! Oh, heh, I'm starting to dream about it again. Anyways, so he would confess his love and we'd run away together. It would happen in so many different ways...one day, he even turned into a centaur and flew away with me on his back!

Yeah, I know, crazy. But I can't help it, I'm just so madly in love with him...And real life just disappoints me every time! Every time I make my move, he just completely misses my not-so-subtle hint and just goes on with his life. In my head, things may not work out realistically, but they at least work out. With him, I felt like I was chasing something that was never gonna happen.

So after a while, this part of my brain started taking more and more priority over my real-world thoughts. I would just start seeing things out of nowhere. After a while, my thoughts got the best of me and I would just spend insanely long amounts of time thinking this way. It was around here that I started to realise that I had a problem.

I'm pretty sure it hit its worst point on my thirteenth birthday, about three months ago. He threw me possibly the most wonderful party you could ever imagine! And I guess it might've been the thought of this amazing gesture of friendship, but I kept seeing him. But it wasn't really him. It was my head confessing his love to me. Every corner I turned, there he was. I ran away from the party that night, not knowing what to do. I was actually going insane.

The next day, I started trying to learn how to combat this insanity. I learned if I just ignored the figments of my imagination, they'd leave. However, that didn't seem to work for long. They obviously must have sensed that I /didn't/ really want him gone from my mind. So I started to force myself to want to. For some reason, I started beating up my figments to get them out of my mind. I guess the thought of beating up my one true love made my mind blank out so badly that it would get rid of my delusions.

But I never took account of what would happen next. It was the last day of summer vacation. Every year, he would throw this huge party to end it all. It was probably the most looked-forward-to event of summer to the entire town. That day, I would keep seeing him. But it wasn't like the normal sightings of him. Like, an entire crowd of him surrounding me during the party. They were all trying to confess their love to me. I broke down into tears. I was going completely insane and there was nothing to stop it. I started hitting them. I didn't care if I looked crazy fighting off figments of my imagination, I just wanted them to go away! I kept beating them out of my mind, but they wouldn't disappear. Then I saw their battered faces. They couldn't have been real. It was impossible.

All of a sudden, I saw all of them disappear. Except one. That one boy, beaten and tattered, had the face of an angel. A bloody, broken, bruised angel. It was as genuinely horrifying as anything else in this crazy world. I knew it was really him...and I had just beaten him into unconsciousness.

I ran. I just needed comfort. I couldn't believe what I just did, but I knew it happened. I needed to get somewhere where my thoughts could be alone. But the guilt kept chasing me. I needed to go back and help him.

As I walked back to the house, my inner demons were coming at me full-force. There must've been hundreds of him. But I just walked on by. I didn't deserve to even feel love anymore. This was the point in time that I knew I was some kind of monster. But I still needed to go make things right. It'd just crush me if he ended up hating me.

So, I finally made it back to his house after what seemed like hours of agonizing walking. He was just coming to, and there was a crowd gathered around him. I opened up the fence and walked over to him. All of a sudden, everyone shifted their attention towards me. However, surprisingly, the emotion I received from their faces wasn't hstred or fear...it was sympathy. Apparently, I was seen as having some huge seizure and actually hitting him in the back of the head as a result. He didn't see any sort of harmful intent in my "attack", but I knew I had to tell him what was really going on.

I told him about my crush. I told him about the certain state of mind he's been putting me in. Actually, I pretty much shared everything I've told you today with him as well. I was actually pretty shocked at his reaction, though. He actually gave me a hug and gave me his word that it wouldn't hurt our relationship. He told me, however, that it'd be healthy for me to go here and consult you about this.

I'm not quite sure what went on after that. Some kids expressed me sympathy, and some people just shunned me for being "that crazy kid." My mom and I had to drive up here to get away from it all, but that's fine. We're only gonna be here for a little while longer. I really miss my friends and I wanna see them again, really badly.

I've done a good job of repressing these figures into the old, nice way it used to be. I only see around one figment every few days to cheer me up. It may not be the healthiest thing, but it keeps me going through the days. It's those kinds of things that just give you something to look forward to in life.

Maybe I'll go back to town sometime soon and reconnect with him. It's been a few months. I've really missed him, even though he had given me all that stress. Maybe we might even start a relationship when I go back. But no one really knows what their future holds. I can just really hope that my life doesn't change too much when I get back aside from my life with him. I don't even know what he's been up to lately. Not sure how he feels about me, but knowing him, he's just as carefree as ever about it. Heck, he's probably eager to see me.

At any rate, I'm hoping that sharing these things with you has kinda shown you why I may be the obsessive person I am sometimes. It's really not easy being stuck in this dreamland of sorts. You never know what's real and what isn't. But hey, at least I've got something to look forward to. All I can do right now, though, is turn the page and hope for the best.

Even if hope's all I have left.

* * *

**-==========~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~AUTHOR'S NOTES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~==========-**

Well, here's my first attempt at a oneshot. It basically touches upon Isabella and her "Phineas Land" delusions, and how they may develop into something along the lines of schizophrenia. It really was an interesting write for me, and actually a ridiculously quick one as well. I started brainstorming ideas for this story around four or five days ago, and actually started writing it on my iPod at around 1:30 in the morning. I wrote for another hour and a half after that, and then went to bed. In school, I wrote pretty much the entire second half and finished around 2:00. Yeah, this took me just over twelve hours to write.

I actually didn't (and still don't quite) know how to end this. Did I want it to end at a cliffhanger? Kind of. I could've gone with more tragic endings in which she killed Phineas when she had that freakout or had broken his neck or something. I also had an idea to make the last group of "figments" actually clones made up by Phineas to keep the party under control, but I felt like it would make this story a bit less serious. I also was thinking of making Phineas confess his love for Isabella and Isabella freaking out on him then, but I decided to just keep it to her delusions. I don't know if they may have come out better another way, but I'll just end it here. However, I might come back to this oneshot later and update it with alternate endings.

I was actually thinking of putting it in charge of the users here to try to come up with their own continuations of this story, but I'm not sure if that'd be to smart of a move. I don't know, it just seems to me that Phinbella stories here follow a pretty exact formula. I tried to see if I could do something here with Isabella's psyche, and I'm not quite sure if it fit my expectations. I'm probably going to make a sequel if I can be bothered, or I'll leave it open-ended. I really don't know what I want to do. But until I decide whether or not this should be continued, enjoy this little half-a-day-in-the-making oneshot.

If you're wondering where I got my inspiration of this story, it was for a few reasons. Plotwise, it obviously came from the little jokes thrown into "Isabella and the Temple of Sap." But I guess I just got fed up with all the stories on this archive that would switch between every possible point of view (badly, I must add) and expect it to come out well. It really doesn't work. This was my first attempt at making a story in completely first-person one-character point of view (I'd say the segments in This Time, It's Not A Dream don't count, as they're not the complete story and they switch out with third-person omniscient point of view). Another inspiration for this was J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, which was done entirely in this style and is just amazingly done. I just wish I could capture the type of mentality he used in that book, but I'm writing for a preteen (in this story, she's a teenager, but I consider them all 10-12 in the show canon) girl, not a 16-year-old boy. Oh well.

Another inspiration I had for this was the Hey Arnold episode, _Helga on the Couch_. The one where Helga's talking to a psychiatrist and telling her all about her family life and, eventually, her crush on Arnold. I find Helga and Isabella to be quite similar (their fashion sense and the fact that they're both hiding a crush on a boy with an irregularly-shaped head, for two), so I figured I'd try this out. I just focused more on her crush more, since that's the main focus of this story, and we don't know much about Isabella's family. However, just because it's based on HotC, that doesn't necessarily mean that Isabella _has_ to be talking to a psychiatrist. She can be talking, or writing, to anyone or anything you want it to be. A psychiatrist, Pinky, nature, a deity, her diary, etc. There's a lot of things it could be. Use your imagination on this one; I didn't use any specific names on this for a reason. Stories are an exploration into the imagination, so let's see what you can come up with!

Now, about reviews. If you're gonna review, please answer me a few questions before you just go and post a three-word one or whatever. What did you like? What did you not like? How do you think this could have done better? What ending do you think would have worked better for this? Do you think I should do more of these kinds of things (first-person stories/oneshots) or just focus completely on This Time, It's Not A Dream until its completion?


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